Recently I got commissioned for a large oil painting of a landscape. For the painting, I need to create a scene that includes a creek, field, and distant mountains. I am primarily taking a lot of inspiration from my surroundings in a rural region of New Jersey. I am also studying many different landscape artists that I look up to.

Especially for commissions, I will often start out digitally making sketches. There are far less contingencies than physically painting and I can easily make changes and send ideas back and forth to the client. With these two sketches, I hope to integrate aspects such as composition, color, perspective, into the physical oil painting. Now that I have these done, It’s time to translate and mix my ideas onto the canvas.

Typically, I find it can be difficult to work on commissions because as an artist I objectively know what works as a visual design and what doesn’t. However, it’s ultimately my job to create something that the client wants even if it might not be something I like or think works. Despite that, I want to make a piece that the customer is happy with.

I plan on covering my process as I begin to start working on the painting. I will also try to share some insights and ideas that come to mind in my next post as well as progress pictures!